A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

had been the first practitioner of typography. It was because of this scarcity
of trained printers in the colonies that, during the five years which followed
Reading's death, the Maryland laws were transcribed upon parchment or
good paper and distributed among the coun ties, where they were published
by the primitive method of voice proclamation. In the year 1718, however,
a way was found out of the position of embarrassment in which the colony
had been placed by the cessation of Reading's press. In this year Evan Jones
of Annapolis, a Welshman and the Provincial man-of-all-work, made pro-
posals to the Assembly in regard to the printing of its laws which resulted
in the publication of a work of great importance in Maryland legal history.

The reference to Evan Jones on the title-page of the Bray "Sermon" of
Annapolis, 1700, where he is described as "bookseller," contains the earli-
est knowledge that we have of the existence of this individual. There also,
for the last time, he was described specifically as "bookseller," but in the
years to come he took part frequently in the Provincial business in capaci-
ties not essentially different from that of his first description. He seems to
have been a ready and cheerful factotum in the public life of Maryland,
and the journals of the Assembly evidence the extent of his participation
in its affairs. In the year 1704 his Excellency in his address to the Assembly
asserted that he had never seen "any publick Buildings left solely to Prov-
idence but in Maryland," and straightway "Mr. Evan Jones of this Towne
a Sober Person" was engaged at ten pounds a year to look after such of the
offices as had been spared by the fire which, earlier in that year, had de-
stroyed the State House. In 1708 Jones acted as Clerk of the Upper House
for an entire session, and in the November session of 1713 he held the posi-
tion of "clerk assistant" of the Lower House. In the year 1713 he was spoken
of as Deputy Collector of the Port of Annapolis, and three years later he
was promoted to the office of Deputy Collector of the District of the Patux-
ent with jurisdiction of the Port of Annapolis. In June 1717 the committee
of the Lower House for the repair of public records employed him to be the
chief undertaker for examining and transcribing the records at the rate of
four pounds of tobacco a "side," a unit of measurement which was to be
considered as containing fifteen lines of seven words each. For his faithful
performance of this task, Major John Bradford, his brother-in-law,¹ gave
bond to the amount of one thousand pounds sterling, a sum of such mag-

¹The will of John Bradford of Prince George's County, probated May 11, 1726, left certain lands to his sister,
Mary Jones, with reversion to her two sons, Evan and John Jones. See Maryland Calendar of Wills, 5:217. This
John Jones seems to have been the second child of Evan and Mary Jones who was given the name "John" In
removing the debris after the burning of St. Anne's church in 1858, a tombstone bearing the following inscription
was discovered: "Here lyeth the body of John the eldest son of Evan Jones and Mary his wife who dyed the 2d

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